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Joe Keller as a tragic hero in Arthur Miller's All My Sons
Joe Keller as a tragic hero in Arthur Miller's All My Sons
The reoccurring theme in many of Arthur Miller’s works was
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How to Make Joe Keller Look Bad
KELLER: Say, I ain’t got time to get sick.
MOTHER: He hasn’t been laid up in fifteen years.
KELLER: Except my flu during the war.
MOTHER: Huhh?
KELLER: My flu, when I was sick during…the war.
MOTHER: Well, sure…(to George) I mean except for that flu. (George stands perfectly still) Well, it slipped my mind, don’t look at me that way. He wanted to go to the shop but he couldn’t lift himself off the bed. I thought he had pneumonia.
GEORGE: Why did you say he’s never-?
KELLER: I know how you feel, kid, I’ll never forgive myself. If I could’ve gone in that day I’d never allow Dad to touch those heads.
GEORGE: She said you’ve never been sick.
MOTHER: I said he was sick, George.
George: (going to Ann) Ann, didn’t you hear her say-?
MOTHER: Do you remember every time you were sick?
GEORGE: I’d remember pneumonia. Especially if I got it just the day my partner was going to patch up cylinder heads…What happened that day, Joe?
In the above lines, Arthur Miller pulls back the veil that has been hiding Joe Keller’s past in All My Sons. Not only are these lines critical to the remainder of the play’s events, but many of the characters also switch emotions almost instantly. With the significance and delicateness of these lines at stake, a director has the responsibility of conveying the language to the audience with only a few pre-existing stage directions as aid. One major way to convey these lines is to remain consistent with how he/she is portraying each character to make them still feel convincing to the audience. If directed effectively, Joe Keller’s departure from all prior characterization will be even more noticeable. In addition to other possibilities, the...
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...l be no happy ending. The chaos George brought into Act II will only magnify after this speech. This section is in essence, the loss of stability in the Keller family. Keller is reduced to a shell of his former self as the audience takes on the beliefs of Chris through the remainder of the play. This scene will hopefully result in frustration towards Keller so that his “You’re a boy, what could I do!” (Miller 2.646) speech does not merit much pity. We realize that although Keller was misunderstood, he lived a lie too long. At the play’s end, this scene acted from my viewpoint should give the audience the feeling that even though Keller’s suicide is tragic, it is these lines that killed him.
Works Cited
Richardson, Gary A. and Stephen Watt, eds. American Drama: Colonial to Contemporary. Cambridge. MA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers, 2003.